On Monday 23 September in Brussels, 13 EU agriculture and fisheries ministers backed Spain’s request to review or abolish the reductions proposed by the European Commission on anchovy quotas in the Gulf of Cadiz for 2024/2025 (see EUROPE 13486/34).
Portugal, Italy, France, Cyprus, Denmark, Lithuania, Greece, Ireland, Malta, the Netherlands, Latvia, Belgium and Croatia supported the arguments of the Spanish minister, Luis Planas, during a Council debate on a proposal to modify certain EU quotas for 2024.
Mr Planas reiterated his “clear and categorical” opposition to the proposal. “I’ve been doing this job for 40 years and I’ve never seen a proposal as devoid of political sense as the one before us”, said Mr Planas during the debate. The Spanish minister criticised the Commission for not waiting for the report from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), due at the end of September.
He also criticised the fact that the proposal subdivides anchovy fishing into zones and fails to take account of the fact that, in addition to the biological stock, the economic and social consequences must also be taken into account, as stipulated by the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and an EU Court of Justice judgment.
Finally, the minister stated that Spain considered the ban on the exchange of anchovy quotas between EU countries to be “a mistake”. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)